Technical innovations and forces have also changed the face of the IT landscape and created a greater than ever set of demands on IT. We’ve seen the advent of regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Basel II, HIPAA which have driven significant changes to business processes, which technology must support. Economic and political forces have raised the importance of disaster recovery andplanning, ensuring that systems and data can be quickly restored to normal operation in the event of a natural or technical disaster. As well, more IT organizations are managing offshore/distributed development or IT services teams – which requires connecting teams with disparate tools and systems. Environmental forces have driven the advent of Green IT – focusing on the reduction of carbon through resource consolidation, such as servers, and green products. (IDC research has shown that for every dollar a customer spends on new server hardware, it will spend $0.50 powering and cooling its server installed base.)Technical advances, increased bandwidth availability and need to flexibly support business processes are increasing the pervasiveness of software as a service, greater client device proliferation, and now Cloud Computing. Using a Service Oriented Architecture, IT is making legacy applications accessible as web services – increasing the ability to integrate these applications to enterprise solutions. This changing landscape is raising the currency and relevance of interoperability for IT.

As you can see, customers do have a choice enabled by interoperability. We want to earn your business at every level of the software stack.

There is no one right way to achieve interoperability. Vendors, depending on their market position, product and customer needs, are taking varying approaches to enable greater interoperability with their products. That said, Microsoft is making significant investments and efforts to address this issue. We are taking a multi-faced approach to providing our customers the ability to choose best of breed applications for their business needs. Our goal is to deliberately design interoperability into our products, especially our core business products. Not only has Microsoft taken a leadership role in the standardization of Web Service (WS-*) specifications through the W3C and OASIS, but we’ve provided and incorporated early, complete implementations of these specifications and protocols into almost all of our applicable products. We’ve also worked with other vendors to test the compatibility of these protocol implementations through plugfests. We continue to enhance our products with new capabilities that can help reduce the cost of running a mixed IT environment. Through our work with the IEC Council, IVA and other technical collaborations, we are also building technical bridges—such as plug-ins and translators—that enable an ever-growing number of products to work with Microsoft solutions. Working with other industry members, Microsoft collaborating with, and broadening our relationships with, dozens of technology companies to improve interoperability for our mutual customers. We’re working with the companies whose products are in your data centers and on your desktops—EMC, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun and many others. In addition to partnerships with individual companies, Microsoft is also a member of the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA), which brings together more than 50 hardware and software vendors. This collaborative industry group develops, tests, publishes and supports interoperable, multi-vendor solutions.Wealso are also actively collaborating with the open source community. We believe both Microsoft and open source software can provide value to our customers, and we want to make it easier for customers to develop and deploy a mix of open source and Microsoft technologies. Today there are more than 80,000 open source projects that run on Windows or are built with our development platform, .NET. We are even releasing our some of our internally developed code to the open source community. Microsoft both competes and partners with traditional commercial vendors, and will continue to do so with open source-based businesses, with a focus on providing value for shared customers. For example, our ongoing working with MySQL to ensure a great experience for .NET developers using Visual Studio and the MySQL database, or our work with SugarCRM to ensure SugarCRM customers have a great experience with Outlook integration. This is the reality in a heterogeneous world.Standards are also central to our interoperability efforts – though, we don’t believe that standards, by themselves, are sufficient to resolve the industry’s interoperability issues. At Microsoft, our belief is that customers are best served when we support open standards, then compete in the marketplace on customer value. Our products support a long list of standards, allowing them to interoperate with other products that also implement those standards. Where we see an unmet need in the market, we work jointly with other industry players to specify new standards that can help resolve the big interoperability issues facing enterprise customers. Each year, Microsoft contributes to, and collaborates with, more than 150 standards organizations.Finally, we are being more open in how we share and provide access to our intellectual property. We’ve taken a number of steps to make it easier for developers to build solutions that work alongside Microsoft products. Through activities such as our technical licensing program, interoperability labs, community support forums, and the publishing of more than 50,000 pages of technical documentation, we are creating more opportunities for people to develop products that complement, sometimes even compete with, Microsoft solutions. This gives our customers more choices for innovation, and a greater range of options for getting even more value from the Microsoft products you already use.Everything begins and ends with our customers. It’s the input and feedback we get from customers that help us set, and if needed reset, our priorities for the product innovations we develop, the collaborations we pursue and the standards we support. It also drives our desire to foster a rich software ecosystem that provides increased opportunity for customers to take advantage of the strengths of Microsoft technologies in a mixed IT environment. Through these combined efforts, we aim to drive greater interoperability and “walk the walk” of our commitment to increased openness.

Our goal is to deliberately design interoperability into our products, especially our core business products.Implementing standards in our products and platforms is a key part this activity. And we add support for more standards based on feedback from our customers. In addition, we continue to enhance our products with new capabilities that can help reduce the cost of running a mixed IT environment. And interoperability is absolutely fundamental to the work we’re doing with the Azure Services Platform, our new operating system and development platform that will unleash the potential of cloud computing. And, through our work with the IEC Council, IVA and other technical collaborations, we are also building technical bridges—such as plug-ins and translators—that enable an ever-growing number of products to work with Microsoft solutions. Deeper EvidenceMicrosoft is broadly licensing the Exchange ActiveSync technology enabling third party mail clients that work with Exchange ActiveSync to provide wireless email, calendar and contacts synchronization with Exchange Server. Third parties licensees include: Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Sony Ericsson, Symbian, Apple, and many more.For instance, Microsoft/Novell Interoperability Labs participated as an extension to Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V test team. Lab members took builds, tested them with open source test scripts on lab systems. They reported bugs and participated in test process to ensure SUSE Linux would work seamlessly with Hyper-V. In response to customer and developer requests, Microsoft will extend the choice of file formats (over 20 today) with native support for ODF 1.1, PDF 1.5, PDF/A and XPS in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 SP2. Through this support and extensive file format compatibility testing through the Document Interoperability Initiative, customers can be assured that Office 2007 files can be accessed seamlessly by other third party implementations of these file formats. A broad array of technology and application adapters are available for BizTalk Server. With support for everything from transport protocols such as FTP, SOAP, and MQSeries, to high level integration with line of business applications such as PeopleSoft, SAP, and Siebel, BizTalk Server enables customers to quickly connect most mission-critical systems

We are collaborating with, and broadening our relationships with, dozens of technology companies to improve interoperability for our mutual customers. We’re working with the companies whose products are in your data centers and on your desktops—EMC, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP, Sun and many, many others. (Speaker Note: IBM is not a member of IVA)In addition to partnerships with individual companies, Microsoft is also a member of the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA), which brings together more than 50 hardware and software vendors– which develops, tests, publishes and supports interoperable, multi-vendor solutions. We are working closely with the open source community, for instance by becoming a platinum sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation. Deeper EvidenceWith Novell, we’ve established an agreement to build, market and support new solutions that make Microsoft and Novell products work better together – for instance ensuring that SUSE Linux Enterprise Server can run as an optimized guest on Hyper-V. We’ve expanded our alliance with Sun Microsystems, opening in 2008 the new Sun-Microsoft Interoperability Center, where engineers from both companies work side by side to make sure our products work well together.We’re also working with Citrix to deliver a comprehensive set of virtualization solutions; Citrix is developing a capability to enable the portability of virtual machines between the Xen hypervisor in Citrix XenServer™ and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. This capability will offer the companies’ joint customers a unified portfolio of virtual infrastructures that utilizes both Hyper-V and the Xen hypervisor under a common System Center management platform. Through theIVA, Active Directory solutions for mixed server environments (such as Likewise Enterprise, Centrify Suite, SymarkPowerADvantage) have been built. Open Source: We’re working to ensure that open source and Microsoft implementations of key protocols (like Samba and SMB file and print protocols respectively) are compatible. We’re also partnering with the open source community as we do with the ISV community – for instance providing MSDN licenses to the Apache Foundation for their use - and working with open source projects such as OpenPegasus. Today there are more than 80,000 open source projects that run on Windows or are built with our development platform, .NET. We are even releasing our some of our internally developed code to the open source community. The open source specification promise: The Open Specification Promise is a simple and clear way to assure that the broadest audience of developers and customers working with commercial or open source software can implement specifications through a simplified method of sharing of technical assets, while recognizing the legitimacy of intellectual property.

Standards are also central to our interoperability efforts – though, we don’t believe that standards, by themselves, are sufficient to resolve the industry’s interoperability issues.At Microsoft, our belief is that customers are best served when we support open standards, then compete in the marketplace on customer value. Our products support a long list of standards, allowing them to interoperate with other products that also implement those standards. In addition, where we see an unmet need in the market, we work jointly with other industry players to specify new standards that can help resolve the big interoperability issues facing enterprise customers. Each year, Microsoft contributes to, and collaborates with, more than 150 standards organizations.Recently, we participated with IBM, EMC, and other leading software vendors in the joint development of the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) specification. This specification will enable data portability between content management systems. With Office 2007, we’re promoting support for Open XML standard, but also delivering native support for ODF with Office 2007 SP2. Not only are we providing this support, but also enabling compatibility testing among Open XML implementations (and among ODF implementations) through our Document Interoperability Initiative. We recently joined the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) Working Group, working with financial service customers to develop the AMQP specification for platform-neutral, open standards-based business messaging. This would connect messaging-dependent applications both within and between firms. We support WS-* (Web service) specifications broadly in our products, for instance: WS-Federation, WS-Meta Data Exchange, SAML support in Windows Server 2008; WS-Trust, SAML 2.0 support in Geneva Server; WS-Management support in Systems Center Operations Manager 2007 Cross Platform Extensions.

Finally, we are being more open in how we share and provide access to our intellectual property. We’ve taken a number of steps to make it easier for developers to build solutions that work alongside Microsoft products. Through activities such as our technical licensing program, interoperability labs, community support forums, and the publishing of more than 50,000 pages of technical documentation, we are creating more opportunities for people to develop products that complement, sometimes even compete with, Microsoft solutions. This gives our customers more choices for innovation, and a greater range of options for getting even more value from the Microsoft products you already use.For many ISVs or IT developers seeking to integrate major MS products in their applications, we are providing access to documentation of detailed technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols in the High Volume Products for free on our website —50,000+ pages to date —currently including specifications for Windows Vista (including .NET Framework), Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. We will be publishing documentation for SQL Server 2008 in the coming months. Some of the Microsoft protocols include patented inventions, and we offer licenses at very low royalty rates in those cases. Open Source developers can create non-commercial implementations without any patent royalty payment. Developers and architects can also participate in and receive support through Community Forums specifically focused on the protocol documentationOrganizations, especially those with offshore/distributed IT, may find a need to integrate Java and .NET components. Microsoft supports web services, enabling Java and .NET to interoperate. Developers will also be able to leverage the new Apache incubation proposal –Stonehenge --which focuses on building a set of sample applications based on approved W3C and OASIS standard protocols with goal of proving interoperability between different implementations on various platforms. Third party tools such as JNBridgePro also allow developers to use existing Java or .NET-based binaries on the other platform, with no need to access or touch the original source code.Microsoft is delivering resources that will allow developers regardless of development environment or language to access key Microsoft products and technologies. Key examples: Release of OSLO modeling language specifications to enable third party runtime development MS funding of Eclipse plug-in so Java developers can use advanced Silverlight development capabilities. Teamprise Plug-in for Eclipse IDE so Java developers can use source control features of Team Foundation Server.MS sponsorship of open source projects to help Web developers support Information Cards in Java, Ruby, PHP. Java and Ruby SDKs for .NET Services, so developers can leverage .NET services to extend their applications using Azure platform and build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.

Notes:Flexible Services Platform with Internet ScaleA flexible services and computing platform hosted from Microsoft’s data-centersFoundational Services: application computingBuilding Block Services: consumable web servicesDevelopers can choose what they want to use and how they use itISV, SI partner, web developer and enterprise usageUtilize services in existing applications, or consume in web applicationsA platform that is secure, reliable, includes developer tools, and support to make scale to 10 users or 10 millionInternet Standards Based and InteroperableAzure building block services use REST and SOAP standards so they can be called from other platforms and programming languagesDevelopers can create their own services and applications that conform to internet standardsSupport for Open ID, C#, Eclipse, IronPython and RubyRichest developer support on the Microsoft platform*Requires re-wording and additional support based on AzureStrategy Day feedbackExtends Existing InvestmentsAugment what you have by reaching out and using the Building Block servicesSelectively expose what you have to business partners and the internetChoose what stays on-premises or off – applications still stay connectedAzure innovations are being incorporated into on-premises products for future feature parity

We target a lot of different kinds of developers…

Much like the .NET Framework provides higher-level class libraries that make developers more productive, .NET Services enables developers to focus on their application logic rather than building and deploying their own cloud-based infrastructure services. While more services are in the works, .NET Services currently includes three core components — Access Control, Service Bus, and Workflow service.

Take your application to the next level

The purpose of these projects is to provide open source software development kits (SDKs) which include a set of libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and real world sample applications that will enhance productivity for Java and Ruby developers. Developers will be able to leverage the Microsoft .NET Services to extend their Java and Ruby applications by using the Microsoft cloud services platform to build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.

Architecture: Java SDK leverages Metro, an open source web services stack (part of the GlassFish project supported by Sun Microsystems). Metro includes WSIT, which provides support for the core WS-* standards and an enhanced support for interoperability with the Windows Communication Foundation and the .NET Framework.

The Ruby SDK for .NET Services is an open source projects that helps Ruby programs communicate with Microsoft .NET Services using plain HTTP. Specifically the SDK includes set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers. Developers will be able to leverage the .NET Services to extend their Ruby applications by using the Microsoft cloud services platform to build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.More information at www.dotnetservicesruby.comArchitecture: The Ruby SDK includes a set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers.Sample Classifieds Application presents a simple classified advertisement system that can be used to post, browse, or search for ads. This sample shows how to use the .NET Services from Ruby with the Ruby SDK

The Ruby SDK for .NET Services is an open source projects that helps Ruby programs communicate with Microsoft .NET Services using plain HTTP. Specifically the SDK includes set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers. Developers will be able to leverage the .NET Services to extend their Ruby applications by using the Microsoft cloud services platform to build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.More information at www.dotnetservicesruby.comThe Ruby SDK for .NET Services is an open source projects that helps Ruby programs communicate with Microsoft .NET Services using plain HTTP. Specifically the SDK includes set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers. Developers will be able to leverage the .NET Services to extend their Ruby applications by using the Microsoft cloud services platform to build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.More information at www.dotnetservicesruby.comArchitecture: The Ruby SDK includes a set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers.Sample Classifieds Application presents a simple classified advertisement system that can be used to post, browse, or search for ads. This sample shows how to use the .NET Services from Ruby with the Ruby SDK

6.
Microsoft’s Multifaceted Approach to Interoperability -Working openly with others to foster choice and innovation?CollaborationProductsWork jointly with partners, competitors and the open source communityDeliver interoperability in Microsoft products and technologiesStandardsDeveloper ResourcesPromote interoperability through new and existing standardsMake it easier to develop products that interoperate with Microsoft solutionsCustomer Input and Feedback6

7.
A Multi-Faceted ApproachProductsInteroperability in core business productsDeliver interoperability in Microsoft products and technologiesCustomer Input and Feedback7

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A Multi-Faceted ApproachCollaborationVendors in your data center and on your desktopWork jointly with partners and competitors to resolve interoperability challengesCustomer Input and Feedback8

13.
Eclipse Tools for SilverlightEclipse Tools for Silverlight (“eclipse4SL” )- A plug-in that enables the development of Silverlight applications within the Eclipse development environmentEclipse Developers…+Open Source Project www.eclipse4sl.orgDeveloped by SoyatecFunded by Microsoft

37.
The Service BusThe problem: Exposing internal applications on the Internet isn’t easyNetwork address translation (NAT) and firewalls get in the wayThe solution:Service Bus provides a cloud-based intermediary between clients and internal applicationsIt also provides a service registry that clients can use to find the services they need

Ruby SDK for .NET ServicesContributors: Thoughtworks, MicrosoftSample ScenarioClassifieds Application (Ruby)This scenario presents a simple classified advertisement system that can be used to post, browse, or search for ads. This sample shows how to use the .NET Services from Ruby with the Ruby SDK.www.dotnetservicesruby.com

Java SDK for .NET ServicesContributors: Schakra Inc, Microsoft Sample ScenarioSupply Chain Management (Java)Supply Chain Management (SCM) is a general scenario where a retailer provides a products catalog to end users based on products in a warehouse. The sample illustrates the usage and interaction of the Java SDK with Microsoft .NET Services.www.jdotnetservices.com

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Java SDK for .NET ServicesHigh level ArchitectureOpen source project offers Java libraries, samples and guidance help Java developers to build applications using the Microsoft .NET Services. Architecture: Java SDK leverages Metro, an open source web services stack (part of the GlassFish project supported by Sun Microsystems). Metro includes WSIT, which provides support for the core WS-* standards and an enhanced support for interoperability with the Windows Communication Foundation and the .NET Framework.

46.
Ruby SDK for .NET ServicesThe Ruby SDK for .NET Services is an open source project that helps Ruby programs communicate with Microsoft .NET Services using plain HTTP. Specifically the SDK includes set of REST libraries, tools, prescriptive patterns & guidance and sample applications that will enhance productivity for Ruby developers. Developers will be able to leverage the .NET Services to extend their Ruby applications by using the Microsoft cloud services platform to build, deploy and manage reliable, Internet-scale applications.Ruby SDK for .NET ServicesContributors: Thoughtworks Inc Microsoft

Project website: www.dotnetservicesruby.comSample scenario: Classifieds ApplicationThis scenario presents a simple classified advertisement system that can be used to post, browse, or search for ads. This sample shows how to use the .NET Services from Ruby with the Ruby SDK.

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Java SDK for .NET ServicesSupply Chain Management SampleScenario: Retailer provides a catalog to an end user based on products available in the warehouseInteroperability : The App is developed in Java and leverages the Access Control and Service Bus features of .NET Services to enable the application functionalityMulticast message informing addition of a new productView Products and Place OrderRETAILERRETAIL USERMULTICAST ENDPOINTPlaceOrderADMIN USERWAREHOUSEAdd ProductMulticast message informing addition of a new product

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Windows Azure BasicsThe goal of Windows Azure is to provide a platform that is scalable and availableWindows Azure can potentially provide various kinds of Windows-based environmentsMarch Community Technology Preview (CTP) supports .NET Full Trust provides developers with a level of flexibility on Windows AzureFastCGI allows developers to deploy and run web applications written with 3rd party programming languages on Windows AzureGeolocation provides developers with the ability to specify a data center location for their applications and data on Windows Azure

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Windows Azure Compute Service - BasicsThe VMs are provided by a cloud-optimized hypervisorThey run 64-bit Windows Server 2008The operating system can be updated while the app is runningFor developers:It’s mostly standard .NETA few things require accessing the Windows Azure Agent, e.g., loggingA desktop replica of Windows Azure in the cloud is provided for developmentCalled the Development Fabric